MFM FC have been awarded three points and three goals after their opponents and nominal home side FC Ifeanyiubah failed to show up for the matchday 20 fixture in Enugu on the resumption of the second phase of the 2020-21 NPFL season on Sunday.

The match was scheduled for the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium where Nnewi-based FC Ifeanyiubah had been mandated by the League Management Company to play their home games “until a satisfactory revised stadium security plan is provided and approved.”

But the privately-run club failed to honour their match against Lagos-side MFM leading to a forfeiture and a standard three-goal, three points award to the visitors.

“MFM FC have been awarded three points and three goals by match officials after FC IfeanyiUbah failed to turn up for matchday 20 fixture game against MFM FC scheduled to kick off by 2:00pm in Enugu,” MFM confirmed on Twitter on Sunday.

“The walkover formalities were performed by centre referee Nura Abdullahi in the presence of Milleye Abubakar, the Match Commissioner and Match Assessor, Peter Edibe.”

The development further imperils FC Ifeanyiubah’s chances of staying up with the club mired in 19th place and the default leaves them with 21 points, four points from safety.

However, FC IfeanyiUbah, has faulted the decision with club media officer Iyke Nwokedi claiming in an interview with The Punch that the match shouldn’t have held in Enugu as the club has both served out their ban and fulfilled all LMC requirements to host the game at their Nnewi home ground.

“The fact is that we didn’t honour the game, the match was supposed to be played in Nnewi and not Enugu,” Nwokedi told The Punch.

“Having served out the ban and worked on our security, and architecture for our stadium to host matches, we had written to the LMC. So, we were surprised that there was a message that we will now have to play in Enugu and that the ban was a double header, so we didn’t honour the game.”